Excelsior!! The Marvel Universe on Film (Spoilers Allowed)

Just a note: this doesn't mean he will be in nine movies. "His deal contains an option to play the character in nine future Marvel superhero films, efforts that are expected to include The First Avenger: Captain America, Thor, The Avengers, toplining a possible S.H.I.E.L.D. movie, and potential sequels." This doesn't guarantee that there will be nine more movies in this thing.

THough most marvel films are great they should do them agian with that concept. So as to tie in what was and what will be. Imagine Peter Parker mentioning to go to Prof X to get answers for his mutation. And all that stuff.

Well, not strictly the right thread for this, but I watched the "Hulk Vs" dvd yesterday, and have to say, it sucked and blew at the same time! Just awful. Serious drop in quality after the previous marvel animated movies.

Marvel Entertainment is readying to assemble a group of writers who will pen scripts for various properties Marvel wants to develop, reports Variety.

Marvel will invite up to five writers each year to work on specific projects. Those could include staffers behind Marvel's comic books.

The trade adds that the company will provide the specific pitches it wants the writers to tackle. Those could involve certain plot points for movies already in development or characters it would like to see in its future film slate.

The gathering of screenwriters will help Marvel come up with creative ways to launch its lesser-known properties, such as Black Panther, Cable, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Nighthawk and Vision.

So far, it has focused its efforts on more popular superheroes like Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America.

A group of Marvel executives will choose the writers, with the final decision made by Kevin Feige, Marvel Studio's president of production.

Terms call for Marvel to own whatever the writers work on during the year. Company has the option to continue a relationship with the writers after that period.

Marvel has said they are waiting for the rights for Daredevil to revert back to them before pursuing a new Daredevil movie.

I personally don't think they'll redo the origin though- it gets some flack from people, but the Director's Cut was really good, and the movie was a pretty solid hit theatrically. And, IMO, it's not that much worse than Burton's first Batman movie overall. Certainly not terrible enough, or enough-off-the-mark-of-the-character (it was one of the better, grittier, comic book scripts up until that point) to warrant a total redo.

[link=http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/16992/lots-of-marvel-superhero-film-updates]Marvel Film Updates[/link]

-Ant-Man: Feige says the project is still in the works. Director Edgar [Wright] was in Los Angeles last week when he and Feige sat down to talk his post-"Scott Pilgrim" plans and when he can get to work on "Ant Man".

Whatever the case the project will not be going into production until next year at the earliest and certainly won't be released until after "The Avengers".

-Black Widow: There's "definitely a possibility" that Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow character from "Iron Man 2" will get her own spin-off movie.

-Captain America: Chris Evans is in London now rehearsing. Pre-production is in full swing and photos of the costume tests "are pretty stunning".

Nick Fury's "Howling Commandos", an elite special unit of U.S. Army Rangers characters from the "Sgt. Fury" comics, will appear in the upcoming film.

-Incredible Hulk 2: The sequel will not happen before "The Avengers". A scene in "Iron Man 2" indicates events in that film happen BEFORE the events in 2008's "The Incredible Hulk".

Will Hulk be a part of "The Avengers"? "I certainly think Hulk will be a player on that team." Yet if scheduling keeps Edward Norton away, Feige has a solution - "we reserve the right to say Hulk will be in it for sure, we'll see about [Bruce] Banner"

-Marvel Heroes: Talking about the minor characters in the Universe, Feige says you won't see a "Dazzler" movie as the character is part of the "X-Men" rights which Fox retains.

There's a lot of meetings right now about their post-"Avengers" projects for 2013 and 2014. As for what characters - Power Pack, Luke Cage, Dr. Strange, Runaways and Ka-Zar are all being considered for potential films.

The studio still intends a 'two films a year' release plan. 3D is being considered but will not be employed at the last minute, if they are to do it then it won't likely be a 'conversion job'.

They're not closing off the possibility of working with other studios on their characters but if they do, expect those films to exists separately - "there's only one place for connective tissue within the... Marvel Cinematic Universe that we're building and those are in the Marvel Studios movies."

A sequel to "Ghost Rider" may happen sooner than you think - with or without Nicolas Cage.

Sony Pictures, who produced the 2007 film, owns the rights to the Marvel Comics character so long as they keep using said character on film. It's a contract clause which forces Fox, Sony, Universal and Lionsgate to keep putting out films featuring the likes of the X-Men, Spider-Man, Punisher, Hulk, Fantastic Four and Daredevil or the rights revert back to Marvel who'd be more than happy to have them back.

Now, Vulture reports that the rights to 'Rider' will revert back to Marvel late this year unless Sony gets into production on a sequel by no later than November 14th. It's a tricky scenario as the first film was a critical disaster and a costly $110 million to produce. Yet despite a lack of audience familiarity with the character, it made a decent $228 million worldwide.

A large part of that success wasn't the character but rather Cage's appeal. Thus his involvement in the project is of major importance. Cage's schedule however may not be clear before the deadline as Disney wants him for a third "National Treasure" film which could begin production as early as this Fall.

The 'Rider' sequel is also simply not ready yet - Scott Gimple and Seth Hoffman have turned in a draft of the script which Sony has out to several potential directors, but that's still along way from being locked in.

Sony could use the film to shore up a rather quiet 2011 schedule and is apparently asking for an extension on the deadline, something that it's unlikely to get. No studio wants to lose a property to a rival who could make it much more profitable, so the question now is will they proceed wi

I'd much, much, much rather see a Ghost Rider 2 than a National Treasure 3. In fact, I wish I still had the brain cells killed off by NT2.
Now, given that there are multiple ghost riders, I wouldn't mind seeing the 1990s GR interpretation instead of the 'classic' version.

Power Pack movie? Oh HELL NO! You know what? Fine. Make it the stupid 3D experiment and get it out of your system. It's a stupid idea, so let's not waste time and effort on ruining a good movie with the pointless technological throwback.

Dr Strange movie? Hey, maybe it will cause another riot in the Midwest/bible belt the way the first one did.

Vitually any character is possible given modern technology. So no matter what character(s), the trick will be to find a good story and script. Without that, as Lucas said in 1978, "Special effects are to tell the story. Without a story, a series of special effects would just be boring." (slight paraphrasing)

Dr. Strange could be great with a charismatic lead. It's almost a shame Downey already took Stark as he could easily make Strange an interesting film. Given Disney owns everyone's soul, perhaps they could hurl enough cash at Johnny Depp to get him onboard after Pirates 4 and whatever Burton movie he's making next. Heck, Burton could even make it a very interesting film. Take a page out of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in terms of the magic usage and make a very decent origin. His training with the Ancient one could mirror Batman Begins. His archenemy could simply be Mordo instead of Dormammu so that it wouldn't suspend disbelief as much.

Also, does no one else sense Disney's hand in holding up Ghost Rider 2? Disney would benefit from the rights, and they have Cage for National Treasure, so they simply move up production on that, to hold up Ghost Rider and get the rights back.

I'm sure that also motivates Columbia to work up contingency plans that don't involve Cage, sadly.

Which at that point they have to ask if it's worth it. People barely turned out for the first one and it was hardly praised by the critics. Nicolas Cage was the only box office draw. And coming off of Kick-Ass, he might even bring more people in. Remove him and replace him with someone else (who we'll assume isn't as good) and the movie flops and they lose far more money in the long run. Plus, they likely tick off Cage so any chance of his return for a third would be gone. In addition the writers say the script isn't done so they'll likely be ticked off. They apparently don't have a director either? Just those three items make me less inclined to the film before it's even been greenlit. Somehow, I expect the general audience and many comic fans to feel the same.